Manufacturers of prepackaged foods and consumer goods must contend with a variety of issues that have implications for product and packaging decisions. One such issue is the need to comply with governmental regulations relating to product net contents in the markets' in which the prepackaged foods and consumer products are sold. Prepackaged foods and consumer products are required to be labeled in a manner indicating the net contents of the package. Regulatory agencies conduct frequent, random inspections of products to ensure that the actual average net contents of the products being sampled is at or above the labeled net content value, and that any given package does not deviate beyond a prescribed amount from the labeled net content. Failed inspections can result in significant penalties and other adverse consequences for the manufacturer.
Another issue facing manufacturers is the expectations and reactions of consumers' with respect to product aesthetics, particularly the consumer's perception that they are receiving a sufficient (e.g., “fair”) quantity of the prepackaged foods and consumer goods for the amount of money paid. It is not uncommon for products and food stuffs, even though in compliance with net content regulations, to appear to be under-filled because of factors such as product settling, product moisture loss, escaped product, and product packaging configuration and construction (e.g., transparency or translucency, voids, and the like). Moreover, manufacturers recognize that package filling processes comprise inherent variations in efficacy, meaning that some packages will be filled below the declared net contents.
To compensate for such process variations, to ensure that the prepackaged food and consumer good products contain sufficient product to pass inspection, and to satisfy a consumer's product aesthetic expectations, manufacturers typically fill packages with additional product (“overfill”), at significant cost. The problem remains, therefore, how to better understand the contributions that specific elements of variance in the product fill processes make to the total variation in actual product net contents from the intended net content of the product.
The present invention offers systems and methods for identifying and predicting product fill process variations in order to satisfy product net content regulations and the product aesthetic expectations of consumers. The present invention additionally provides systems and methods for identifying and predicting the cost implications associated with product fill decisions.